[LINK] NBN secure against Cyberwar?

[Tom Worthington]

"Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar" (Martin C. Libicki) is a RAND report for
the US Airforce which details the difficulties of dealing with attacks
on military and civilian computer infrastructure:
<http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG877/>.

This prompts me to ask how secure the NBN will be against attack. Apart
from cyberattack, there is the issue of the effect of electromagnetic
pulse (EMP) from a  nuclear explosion or e-bomb. While that may seem far
fetched, the NBN is intended to be in use for decades. During that time
there is the risk of nuclear proliferation and the development of more
effective non-atomic e-bombs.

Australia is spending A$8B to purchase three warships capable of 
launching anti-balistic missiles 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart_class_destroyer>. These will use a 
radar antenna designed by CEA Technologies in Canberra 
<http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/australia-and-usa-collaborating-on-new-phased-array-radar-01055/>. 


It might be prudent to spend a few billion more to make sure the NBN is 
reasonably secure against attack.  One nuclear explosion high in the 
atmosphere could be enough to disable the Australian telecommunications 
network for several years. Fibre networks are more resistant to EMP that 
copper networks and some small extra expenditure on the NBN could make 
it much more resilient.


ps: Some excerpts from the book "Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar", for 
those who don't want to download all the PDF:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/10/cyberdeterrence-and-cyberwar.html>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274